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Sunday, July 13, 2014

So, I tried out a list for FoB: 1x Knight Errant, 3x Dreadnoughts with assault cannons, 2x Dreadnoughts with Multi Melta, 2x Razorbacks (lascannon) with 5 tac marines, a stormtalon, and Master of forge with Gorgan Chain. This was not my original concept, but this is the first time I took a master of the forge, and I had NO dreadnoughts in my list, so I decided to go the other extreme and take 5. My other list would have been stronger, especially against what my opponent was using. He brought Orks, from the new codex. He had 2 units of Lootas, 2 units of grots, 2 Forgeworld tanks (even though they won't be allowed in the tournament, but I was bringing a Knight Errant against Orks...), 3 units of mega'nobs, (each unit had 2 guys with double buz saws), 2 trucks (to carry the 2 of the 'nob units), and an aegis defense line.

He ended up going first. I had positioned my Knight in the back, with my dreadnoughts closer and to the side (so they would keep up with Knight for a turn, but not be in his way). As there was almost no middle cover (the board was 2 sets of ruins, divided my a street), my dreadnoughts go destroyed by the lootas. We were playing the first scenario from the feast of blades qualifier pack. My knight stayed in the middle of the because of of the 'Nobs waiting to charge. At the end of five turns, I had 3 objectives to his one, but had killed 4 more units than me, giving his a massacre (so the score would have been 13 to 7 - he also had first blood)

What did I learn: By the end of the game, I had lost a flyer, 3 dreadnoughts, and both razorbacks, but I had three objectives, so it didn't seem so bad, even though I lost, until you consider that 3 of my dreadnoughts died and one was immobilized without any of them firing a shot.

The Knight was not a fire magnet, because my opponent ignored him because of the shield, and it wasn't the charge threat I expected, because of the 3 units of 'Nobs (after the 5th turn, we went into the assault, and the 2 'nobs with buzz saws killed it - 10 str 9 armor bane attacks, needing 3's to hit, because formation gave them +1 WS).

My goal was to give my opponent more things to shoot at then the Knight, which is why I loaded on dreads, but the lootas tore them apart before they even got to shoot. Need more than armor 12, or I need to give them a save. Really, I think I need to give them drop pods, but I couldn't find the points, and the list was already low model count, even at 1500.

SECOND GAME: We played another game, so I could try using my Knight as cover for the dreadnoughts. I started with the Knight in front, and the Razorbacks and Dreadnoughts behind. The cover worked on the first turn, I only lost 1 Razorback to Lootas. I took a few other hits, but I saved about half of them (on 5+). On my move, I moved to the middle of the board, and then he charged my with a truck of 'nobs. He buzz saws killed the Knight again, although this time they barely got the 6 HP they needed, and the death explosion scattered backwards into my entire army. While I only lost a dreadnought, and took a few HP on some others, we called the game (since we already knew that 24" ranged dreadnoughts were not going to survive the loota and tank barrage that was coming).

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

So, I went to one of the local stores (next town over) and one of the
people there was talking about how he was the Arizona Feast of Blades
representative, and a friend of that store owner, and they said they
were going to have a qualifier soon. I have always wanted to do a big
event against people from outside my meta (even though I haven't been
playing a lot lately), so I looked into it.

40k Qualifier 2014 7th edition format:

1500 points

Battleforged Rules:- One "Combined arms detachment," and- Up to one of the Following: a) Another combined arms detachment b) An allied detachment c) A single formation

Stronghold assault not allowed

The following list of Fortifications are allowed: Aegis line, Bastion, Skyshield, Fortress of Redemption.

Forgeworld is not allowed.

Lords of War are not allowed.

According
to the FAQ, imperial knights will be allowed (presumably as the allied
detachment). Given my recent experience with Imperial Knights, I think
that a lot of people are going to take them, and that one of the only
ways to counter an Imperial Knight, especially at 1500 points, is
another Imperial Knight; I managed to kill one at 2000 points, but it
cost me 2 land raiders to do it, so I bought an Imperial Knight.

Given
the inclusion of a super heavy, I expect to see a few armies - one is
the Imperial Knights (got that covered). I also expect to see Necrons,
probably with a lot of flyers (so I need a way to neutralize that). I
also expect that there will be some Eldar or Dark Eldar with lances and
haywire grenades. (This store is out of town, so I don't really know
the meta, although I know at least one plays Dark Eldar). An IG tank
line could also be a problem, although I calculate that, from the shield
side (and most tank / gun lines are not very mobile), it would take 36
LasCannon shots do kill an Imperial Knight (part of the calculation that
led me to get one for this tournament).

I have enough
IG and Space Marines that I can field either to support the Imperial
Knight. The Imperial Knight worlds have "met-at-arms" which are
compared to IG planetary defense forces, and they also mention mounted
troops (several groups of bikers with power lances and "knight" heads
would look pretty cool too (assuming I convert and paint them all -
which I am tempted to do, except that the actual FoB Tournament will
allow Stronghold Assault and Lords of War, so I am not sure that I will
use the same army, assuming I win the qualifiers).

For the
points, I am leaning toward IG, only because I can take 2 flyers, and
still have lots of units (but they are IG - I like IG stories and
background, but I am more used to player mech and / or power armor...
Decisions....

Monday, June 30, 2014

So, it has been a while since I have played, but I've gotten 3 games in 7th edition in the last 3 weeks, so I throw out some thoughts on my experience with Blood Angles in 7th. The first game I played in 7th was against IG, or whatever they are called now - Militarium?

It was a tank line behind an Aegis defense line, with some special forgeworld rules. The IG played had a 30 man platoon bubble wrap between the tanks and the wall, so I could not drop pod my Sterngaurd or either of my 2 Furiouso dreads close enough to get a good melta shot off. I made good use of enemy's ADL, and all my stuff that was not in a pod is in 1 LR or 2 Razor backs, but all the vehicles got popped, and then it was bunch of marines being pounded with AP 3 barrage. Death Company did ok - by that I mean they lasted 2 turns of getting pounded before dying without killing anything.

- The biggest lesson I re-learned from this game was that I should have drop podded my stuff into the ruins on the flank, instead of landing in front of wall and trying to chew through his infantry to get to the tanks (with the Furiousos did in 2 turns, but not fast enough to open gap for other melta before they were destroyed.

-The other lesson was that, since we were playing with tactical objectives, and I had the advantage early, I should of stayed out of range. It would have been a fast, not very exciting game, but I let myself get sucked into trying to destroy stuff, and charged into his tanks -instead of using my speed to take the points I could, and then making HIM change HIS game. (instead I lost by 1 point, even though the game ended on turn 5 and all I had left was 2 drop pods and 3 space marines)

I used the same army for the next 2 games. It was 4 Assault marine squads (5 men), each with a land raider (2 landraiders and 2 crusaders), 2 Furiouso dreads with claws (for counter charge), and a stormraven with meph.

The first game I played against chaos space marines allied with demons, and did not get iron arm with Meph, so he stayed in the plane until it was shot out from under him. Besides Typhus, there were 2 demon princes and at least 1 greater demon. He had very little that could punch through my armor (in fact he glanced 1 land raider, 1 time). This was a pretty well matched game, because my opponent, although he couldn't kill the Raiders, almost tied because he played the tactical objective very smartly - for example, when I grounded a demon prince, and locked him into combat with my dread, that demon summoned a squad of horrors to take the objective. all of my stuff did what I expected, and I even used one of the 5 man squads to clear some demons off of an objective - too late to stop him from getting tactical points though.

-The game was a lot of fun, and really close, but not a lot of lesson to learn, I won, and every unit did what I wanted - the LR kept stuff safe, the Furiouso's locked up demon princes (or kept them from landing). Although I wasn't playing the monsters, it was worth noting that the change to making smash attack only 1 attack (instead of half) took a lot of threat out of demons princes against armor and dreads - they are not really a threat to heavy armor). Also, if Mehpiston is going to sit in the plane all game, I could save a lot of points with a cheaper HQ.

The second game, I was caught off guard by an Imperial knight. I wasn't expecting a super heavy (we never really discussed the list, beyond that they would be 2k points), but I was game - (good thing, because I found out that not only did he not have enough IG without the knight, but that he had bought and put together $250 worth of guard the night before, so that would have enough points to play. Once my Land Raiders got popped (all by turn 3 I think), things went down hill fast. In the end, the game ended on turn 5, and I lost 11-1, but the momentum was finally turning in my favor, and had there been a turn 6, I am pretty sure (baring some stupid lucky - or unlucky dice, I would have won 6-5)

Lessons from this game: -
- mostly about the imperial knight. The armor, the shield, nothing special - I did not realize that they could move 12, and that their chainsword did "D" damage. His cannon didn't do anything, but he killed 2 of the land raiders in melee in 2 turns (I had moved in to get the melta shot bonus)

-If you are close enough to hit the knight with the melta bonus, you are probably close enough to take a "D" hit from the explosion when the knight dies - I lost a squad of infantry and a furiouso dread to the explosion.

-Mephiston is pretty tough. With iron arm, las cannons needed 4's to wound, Meph took 4 to the face, and kept trucking, and almost single handedly won me the game (in another turn). The problem was that it took him too long to be useful. He came in on turn 2, but the stormraven had to attack the knight. The next turn, the stormraven zoomed to the drop zone (with the intention of hovering on turn 4 so meph could charge), but the stormraven got stunned, and Meph had to "fall from the skies", which meant to charge until 5. Like I said, he took 4 LC shots, killed a LC squad, and was poised to clear an objective (and probably take out the enemy warlord with a pskyker attack). Again Meph proved how tough he was, but if it takes him 5 turns to charge, he is going to have a hard time leveraging that toughness. Maybe I can put him in one of the Land Raiders (then he would almost be guaranteed a turn 2 assault, which would have made a big difference in that particular game.

-Also, a rule note that I had not seem mentioned - how damage is allocated to a squadron. It might have always been this way (I don't fight squadrons much). Once you score hits, you assign them, and resolve them one at a time - I always thought it was roll all penetrating and glancing, and then allocated them - it doesn't make a big difference, unless some of the shots are at a different facing, but then it might.

Edit: It is worth noting that if the Land Raiders had contained full squads, it might have been closer in my favor. Granted that this was IG, but I still was able to break 3-4 units in charges (usually with only 3 marines (that's all that was left before the charge), but then I would get shot down to 0-1 guys; 5 more bodies in each of those charges might have let me keep one of the objectives (as it was, 3 marines almost defended an objective from 3 units of guardsmen, and probably could have if it wasn't for the hotshot lasers)

A month or two ago, I posted that people should give double force organizations a try. I don't really have an agenda (ie, a secret I-win-list just waiting for some sucker to allow me to use it, really I don't)

I just think the points will balance out most lists anyway, and I think some armies will find better balance - I have had lists where I maxed out heavy, fast, and troops, and had to take elite simply because I had points left over.

Anyway, most tournament people apparently didn't agree with me, and GW apparently noticed that people were not buying into the double force org idea, so they made the new Space Marine Codex.

According to this codex, you can take one chapter, and then take a different chapter as allies. Granted, this is not exactly double force org, but it does give you an extra HQ, 2 Troop, Heavy, Fast, and Elite - given a 2000 to 2500 game, you will probably run out of points before running out of slots.

I wonder if tournament organizers will start letting other armies ally to themselves, as a limited double force org (and I admit the idea of facing 4 Heldrakes is daunting enough, forget about 6... although at that point, are 2 more Heldrakes really going to make a difference?)

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Tonight I tried out the Kill Team rules from Heralds of Ruin. I have to say, if you haven't checked them out, you really should. The rules are simple, easy to follow and all work to keep the game fairly quick-paced.

The teams are set up as small 250 point squads using adjusted kill team lists (basically codexes) for each army. Each list does an excellent job of maintaining the flavor of the army. I can not speak to overall balance of the lists, but we played a game pitting Dark Angels against Chaos Space Marines and I can say that these two lists seemed balanced.

The rules definitely keep the game fast-paced and are very easy to follow while making the actions of the models seem heroic. The game we played took just over an hour and that was including set-up, tear down, and having to refer to the rules. I think once you become familiar with the rules, games should be closer to 30-45 minutes.

So for those of you who want a shorter game, or perhaps just don't have the money to spend on larger armies, this is definitely worth a try. And incidentally, for those that are curious, my Angels won the day!